Improving product location and order picking activities in a distribution centre

This article examines the effect of different product location strategies on the distance that order pickers must cover to do their job. This distance is an important cost component in warehousing activities. Our empirical study is based on a real industrial setting, in which the products are located on both sides of a conveyor belt. We show that choosing the right product location strategy allows the current picking distance to be reduced more than 10%. We also propose a post-optimization procedure that can further reduce picking distances—up to 20% of the current distances. Through a study of the routing strategy used to dispatch pickers, we demonstrate that solving a simple travelling salesman problem can further reduce distances up to 13%, compared with the distances incurred using a predetermined route. We show that reductions of up to 27% compared to current picking distances are possible if our product location and routing methods are combined.